Hays also urged the appointment of a sub-agent to assist him in controlling the situation, and the reestablishment of a military force at Fort Wayne. “It is neither [at] Chicago, Green Bay, Prairie du Chien, Falls of St. Anthony, Rock River, or any part of the Mississippi or even Michilimakanac ... that in my opinion a Military force would be more necessary.”[18] he wrote to John Calhoun. The opinion of Hays was not one to be lightly put aside, as it was he, who on the strength of his wide experience, furnished information on the routes for the armies and the distribution of forces from Montreal to Michilimackinac during the War of 1812.
Owing to the disapproval of his proposal by Governor Cass, head of the Fort Wayne agency, none of Hays’ suggestions were adopted, however. Hays was often at odds with Cass as to the manner of dealing with the Indians. In one instance, Hays had been having particular trouble with the Potawatomies under Metea. These Indians objected to traveling to Detroit to receive their annuity rather than coming to Fort Wayne, which was almost a hundred miles closer to their village, near the present site of South Bend, Indiana. Hays, therefore, agreed that the next payments should be made at Fort Wayne, but Cass ignored the agreement and ordered the Indians to come to Detroit. After they arrived, Cass reproached them for crossing into Canada to receive British gifts. Metea bitingly replied that they would gladly give up the practice, if the Americans gave out the annuities at Fort Wayne.
During his second year at Fort Wayne, Hays was obliged to reduce his expenditures from $5,000 to less than $3,000 in line with a general reduction of funds for the Indian Department. At the same time, he needed money to repair the agency quarters within the fort, which were fast decaying. Added to the decay was the destruction brought about by Reverend Isaac McCoy’s Indian school children living within the fort. The property of the agency at this time was listed as “public dwellings inside the stockade, five dwelling houses outside the fort, one blacksmith shop, one coal house, one root house, one stable, two pastures, one timothy meadow, and one field all fenced.”[19]
While John Hays was Indian agent at Fort Wayne, Benjamin Berry Kercheval served as his assistant at a salary of $500 a year. Kercheval was born at Winchester, Virginia, April 9, 1793, and went to Detroit when he was eighteen. Around 1818, Kercheval came to Fort Wayne and here served for a time as an interpreter for Benjamin Stickney. Later he became a representative of the American Fur Company, a position he held when he was employed by Hays. Hays used Kercheval a great deal and trusted him implicitly. In 1821, the birth of a daughter to Benjamin Kercheval and his wife, formerly Maria Forsythe, was an event of such interest to the Indians that they shortly adopted the child with solemn ceremonies as a member of the Miami tribe.
The national government recognized the growing importance of Fort Wayne in the establishment of a post office in 1820. Although Samuel Hanna was in reality the first man to serve as postmaster at Fort Wayne, Kercheval whose commission bore the date of February 4, was the first appointee of President Monroe. Hanna established the office in his store, after Kercheval evidently had declined to serve.
At this time there was one mail every two weeks from Cincinnati, and the only newspaper to find its way to the pioneer village regularly was the Liberty Hall from Cincinnati. In 1822, in response to the demands of the town, the government established regular routes between Fort Wayne and Chicago, as well as the Ohio villages on the St. Mary’s.
The chief industry of the village in these early years continued to be trade with the Indians, either for their furs and peltries or for their annuity money. With the end of the Indian wars, the Miamis and neighboring tribes once more found time for hunting and trapping. At the same time the establishment of European peace in 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic era, brought about a sharp rise in the price of furs. New and powerful traders began to operate in the Maumee-Wabash area with many coming to Fort Wayne as the central point of the region.
We have already noted the firm established by Samuel Hanna and his brother-in-law, James Barnett in 1819. A year later the American Fur Company, operating from Detroit and owned by John Jacob Astor, established an important branch at Fort Wayne. Benjamin Kercheval, Alexis Coquillard, and Francis Comparet were its first representatives. Comparet and Coquillard, both came directly from Detroit for the purpose of establishing the company’s branch house at Fort Wayne. Comparet remained at Fort Wayne permanently, but Coquillard later established a trading station on the St. Joseph river of Lake Michigan, on the site of the city of South Bend, as an outpost of the company’s establishment at Fort Wayne.
In 1822, the family of Alexander Ewing came to Fort Wayne from Troy, Ohio. The Ewing family consisted of Alexander Ewing, an old Pennsylvania trader, his wife, Charlotte, three daughters—Charlott, Lavina, and Louisa—, and four sons—Charles, who became president judge of the circuit court of Indiana, Alexander H., who later became a prosperous Cincinnati merchant, and George W. and William G., who became associated with their father in the trading establishment.
Alexander Ewing with his sons, George W. and William G., did business under the name of “A. Ewing and Sons”. After the older Ewing’s death in 1826, the firm became “W. G. and G. W. Ewing.” The Ewings became known for their real-estate and fur-trading operations, the latter on a scale that made them rivals of the American Fur Company in the Great Lakes region. At first the two firms were friendly toward each other, but a trade war which eventually broke out between the two companies in 1828 resulted in the bankruptcy of the American Fur Company five year later. The Ewings also found it profitable to advance goods to the Indians, thereby presenting large claims against the annuity payments for the Indians. The Ewings had branch houses in Logansport, Largro, and Peru, and posts in Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, at the height of their business interests.